I actually did FCC a while back and got this job a while back as well, but decided to share my journey to landing not only my first coding job, but my first real job. By the way, when I say FCC helped prevent me from getting deported I am referring to the limited time international students have to look for jobs after graduating college (and obtaining their OPT).

I applied to over 300 jobs and got ignored from most of them and maybe heard back from no more than 10 companies, most of which rejected me. I had one interview prior to my current job and you can guess how that went. I was about a week out from flying back home and eventually taking a job in Singapore at a large multinational company (which I did not want), but was somehow able to get an internship before that changing the course of my life.

I wrote an article about this and I hope it motivates you to continue to keep persevering through tough times.

I had some experience using some of Stephen Grider’s Udemy courses, but it only provides a very basic foundation and it wasn’t very helpful when it came to learning and retaining new knowledge. I just completed the React projects (except for the last two) and I believe I also recreated several of the earlier projects in the Front-end Development course to really drill in how React apps are set up as well as some of the other concepts taught in the beta. Getting repetition is always very helpful.

I would suggest you try and determine what your favorite/most effective learning style is and stick with that. But, I looked at some books and Udemy courses, but the best way for me to learn was by simply diving in and building websites and applying whatever concepts I had learned up to that point. This often requires going back to the exercises and looking at some of what you have learned. It’s also important to know how to use Google to find a solution to a problem within the project and being curious about new things you learn and continuing to research them until you feel you understand it well enough (not expecting any mastery, but a more solid understanding of said concept). I’d personally recommend completing all the Front-end course projects and if you feel like you still need practice then just search for more things to build on Google or just try to replicate some sites. I think most people will find that doing is the best way to learn, you can read as many books or watch as many videos about how to code as you want, but if you don’t actually go and code anything, you’ll just have a bunch of knowledge on how to code. You won’t get the necessary practice and process of making mistakes, trying to solve problems, fixing bugs and much much more. Besides, when you get a job you usually won’t have time to read a whole book before starting to code, you have to just ask questions and figure the rest out.